SpaceX CEO Elon Musk stands at the base of a Starship rocket prototype at the company’s facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
Steve Jurvetson on Flickr
Elon Musk SpaceX employees last week told SpaceX that the company is unlikely to take its Starlink satellite Internet business public until 2025 or later, CNBC has learned, revisiting the projected timeline for an initial public offering.
“I’m not sure when [IPO] But maybe it will be — I don’t know, just guessing — three or four years from now,” Musk said Thursday at a meeting of private company employees, according to an audio recording obtained by CNBC.
Musk stressed, as he has done before, that the Starlink business needs to be “in a smooth sailing state” with “good predictions”. At the time, “I think it made a lot of sense to shut it down as a public company,” Musk said.
The latest timeline for the Starlink IPO represents another delay and comes despite repeated questions from various investors over the years for owning a piece of SpaceX — a stock that is privately traded.
Musk previously targeted an offering as early as this year, according to an email to SpaceX employees obtained by CNBC. “It probably makes sense to take Starlink public in about three years,” said an email sent by Musk in May 2019.
The SpaceX CEO pushed back on that estimate last year, saying in a tweet that it was “at least a few years before Starlink’s revenue can reasonably be estimated,” adding that it “very painful to go public early.” Will happen.”
SpaceX did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on Musk’s comments.
SpaceX’s Starlink network is designed to deliver high-speed internet anywhere in the world via thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit. The company disclosed late last month that Starlink now has over 400,000 subscribers worldwide, SpaceX has so far launched about 2,500 satellites to support the system.
While SpaceX offers a variety of Starlink products and services, a base price of $110 per month and the company’s most recent customer count suggest annual service revenue of more than $500 million a year.
A Starlink satellite terminal, also known as a dish, setup in front of an RV.
SpaceX
Musk warned employees during his remarks on Thursday that they “shouldn’t think about things that are going to be public, like, a certain path to funding.”
“Public markets are fickle” and “if you don’t live up to expectations the pistols really do whip you,” Musk said.
Musk has often had a controversial relationship with regulations for publicly traded companies. In 2018, he agreed to pay millions in settlement fees with the Securities and Exchange Commission in response to allegations of fraud surrounding an aborted take-private scheme of his electric vehicle company, Tesla, he’s still battling Twitter On the proposal to privatize the social media company.
“Going public is certainly an invitation to pain,” he told SpaceX employees on Thursday. “And the stock price is just distracting.”
SpaceX continues to raise billions in capital to develop both Starlink and its giant Starship rocket. The company’s valuation reached $127 billion during its latest funding round.,